So Waugh was a Catholic. And a strange one at that. Or simply lucid? A telling quote from Unconditional Surrender where the hero Guy Crouchback describes his motions of faith:

"Guy genuflected and then stood to pray asking mercy for Virginia and for himself. Although brought up to it from the nursery, he had never been at ease with the habit of reciting the prayers of the Church for particular intentions. He committed Virginia's soul - 'repose' indeed, seemed the apt petition - to God in the colloquial monologue he always employed when praying; like an old woman, he sometimes ruefully thought, talking to her cat."
(Penguin ppback., p.198)

By a mere chance just happened upon a Catholic blog musing on precisely the same subject... Oh mysteries of life.